Visit to Netherlands a learning experience for local farmers & Dutch counterparts

The week of Oct. 20-27, our family traveled in a group of 36 to the Netherlands as part of Ben & Jerry's Vermont Dairy Stewardship Alliance farmer exchange.

The group included 13 farmers and their families from Vermont, as well as representatives of Ben & Jerry's, the UVM Center for Sustainable Agriculture and Extension Service, and the St. Albans Cooperative.

The Vermont Dairy Stewardship Alliance (DSA) and their European counterparts, the Caring Dairy, – an offshoot of the DSA – share mutual goals of promoting sustainable dairy farming practices. Last year, a group of 11 farm families from the Netherlands visited Vermont to view our dairy farm practices and learn from us.

All participants completed a self-assessment tool kit to help them evaluate their farm, enabling them to determine the sustainability of their farm in relation to environmental, social and economic attributes. The focus areas of the toolkit are animal husbandry, biodiversity, community health, energy, farm financials, nutrient management, organic information, pest management, soil health and water management. After completing the toolkit, participants then utilized the evaluation results to make positive changes on their farms. The feedback from the tool kit is very helpful, pinpointing areas that are in the most need of improvement.